NEA to also probe co-ops’ performance

By Jordeene B. Lagare – February 8, 2019
from The Manila Times

THE National Electrification Administration (NEA) will conduct its own review of the performance of all electric cooperatives (ECs) in the country.

“Consistent with its mandate under Republic Act 10531, the NEA will, moving forward, conduct a thorough performance review of the ECs involved—a task regularly performed by the NEA based on set of parameters or key performance standards—and submit the results of the same to the DoE (Department of Energy) and the HoR (House of Representatives) for their appreciation and evaluation,” the agency said in a statement.

The NEA, which supervises ECs across the country, issued the statement amid the DoE’s earlier pronouncement that it will check the showing of 121 ECs in line with the government’s goal of achieving total electrification by 2020.

“The review will be an inclusive process,” Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi earlier said in a statement. “We will ask the ECs to identify their main challenges and work with them in determining long-term and sustainable solutions. For transparency purposes, the results of the review will be made available to the public.”

The DoE has since then assured it would practice objectivity in the assessment of all ECs to identify the challenges that beset some of the troubled cooperatives.

“There will be due process for all ECs. Our priority is to address the root causes of their problems and help in their rehabilitation so they may provide the quality of services consumers in their franchise areas truly deserve,” Cusi said in a statement. But “for those [with] extremely dire cases, the government could no longer ignore the negative impact on citizens.”

Last month, the Energy chief recommended that 17 power co-ops be stripped of their franchises in a letter to House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The move irked an industry group, which described it as “unjust”.

“This unjust and biased recommendation was done without prior consultation with the concerned electric cooperatives,” the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association (Philreca) said in a statement on Saturday.

The DoE has already withdrawn the recommendation as it “sees the need to further evaluate and assess the present status and performance of the 17 electric cooperatives,” Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella has said.